Intro

Around the end of March 2021, I was finishing packing and ready to leave my home of almost five years… the (in)famous Silicon Valley moving to New York City. This was a well-thought-out and long-term decision (rare for me; I tend to be intuitive and make decisions and become committed to them impulsively) and “one last try to find my place in the US,” if it failed, I would most likely return to Europe.

I was extremely excited but full of concerns and uncertainties. I have written an extensive blog post on my motivations, and it turned out to be pretty popular and went viral, including Hacker News, where it got a mix of comments, but to my surprise, many positive and agreed with me. (Some comments were hilarious, though, like my complaints about teens having not much to do in the suburbs were “refuted” by some gentleman who claimed his kids were thrilled and had plenty to do; for instance, they could be driven to a mall, hang out with their friends, and even grab a boba tea; sounds terrific and like everything a teen needs, doesn’t it?).

Over two years later, I can say that the NYC honeymoon and novelty are over; I got used to living here and can be relatively balanced in my subjective judgment. On top of that, I have changed jobs in the meantime (which was one of my concerns), became an American citizen (which would make leaving the US easier procedurally but possibly harder emotionally), and thought I could use a long weekend to reflect. Did New York City fulfill my expectations?

If you want a TLDR – it’s freaking awesome; I love it so much, made many great friends, decided to stay “indefinitely” and buy a home in roughly the same neighborhood I live in, and am moving into it hopefully soon.

This post is fully self-contained, but I will refer to some thoughts and ideas I wrote in my previous post, so if you have time and are curious about how my thinking changed over two years, check it out.

Also, this post is nothing more than “random opinions of a random dude,” so spare yourself such a comment. If you expect deep insights or universal life or career “optimization” advice, you won’t find it here. 

Why NYC is the best place on Earth… for me

I have lived in seven different cities across four different countries, enough to form personal preferences and an opinion – and from all of those (and tens of ones I traveled to), New York City is the best place for me to live. This is my subjective take, colored through my personality and my life experience – I know plenty of people, some very close to me, who would hate it. I won’t try to be objective, but I will highlight my reasoning and try to nuance where someone might disagree and why.

And one crucial clarification – I live in Brooklyn (Bushwick area) and spend nearly 100% of my time here. I visit doctors, dentists, museums, and galleries in Manhattan and often party in the close Queens, but almost everything I will cover here is very borough-centric. This was one of those things that surprised me – how easy it is to 100% live in some relatively small neighborhood if you choose it to your preferences and proximity of friends. Everything you need is around.

This is also what surprises my friends and family who live outside of the US – for them, the NYC experience is crowded, touristic, overwhelming, and high-rise midtown Manhattan. This is the opposite of other boroughs and even other parts of Manhattan, and they are puzzled at how my personal experiences differ from their tourist visits. So, if you visited NYC once or twice and mainly stayed around Midtown, I’d say you didn’t experience the plentitude and the best the city offers. 🙂 

Friends and social life

Let me start with something I didn’t think of as a problem before, but I realized it was, and I ended up extremely lucky and happy. Having some great friends, again.

Background: I have many lifelong friends in Warsaw, and my schedule is packed anytime I visit the city. I absolutely love them, and spending time with them brings me plenty of joy. Even if I don’t do anything “special,” just the presence of the close ones fills me with motivation, optimism, and energy for many months.

However, the social life of an immigrant is much more challenging. You leave all the friendships you built through childhood, school, college, and the 20s behind, and most people don’t make many friends in their 30s… You also face cultural and lifestyle differences (especially in places like Montreal, where there is a language barrier if you don’t speak fluent French). I had some close friends in Montreal – a handful, but spending great time together. I had fewer friends in LA, but they were also cool people – some met through work, some through other gamedev connections. On the other hand, some cultural and lifestyle differences were strong – such as my incompatibility with the West Coast outdoorsy lifestyle, and I started feeling a bit lonely. Then, SFBA was a social life disaster, and I realized only later how miserable it made me feel. I had some friends, but most of them lived far away (like a 1.5h drive) or had kids and different lifestyles. We were hanging out mostly with just one cool couple who lived close to us; others we’d see maybe once a year. I made some weak friendships at work, but I could not find a common language – or shared interests and personalities – with most tech workers, and definitely with no techbros. When the pandemic hit, I got a severe depression episode and realized how much I need others to be happy (and how extraverted I am, despite being on the light Asperger’s side of the ASD).

I realized that for me, life is only worth as much as you share it with others: listening to their life stories, having experiences together, good times and bad times, arguing, laughing, and partying. Seeing none of it where I lived and getting my “social life batteries” recharged only once a year (visiting Warsaw) was just miserable. When I visited Warsaw in 2020 (and how they basically ended all the pandemic restrictions for the summer) after 6 months of not going out clubbing or meeting almost anyone, it made me happy again.

When moving, I didn’t think much about it. In hindsight, I was a pessimistic doomer and assumed it was a part of being in your 30s.

I was very pleasantly surprised right away. I met with some folks I knew from Twitter (RIP, little birdy, killed by a cruel right-wing idiot billionaire) or from other online or conference interactions, and was met with a lot of kindness and welcoming that I couldn’t expect from anyone, and invited to their lives and social circles, introduced do many people about whom I almost immediately felt really good. I truly and sincerely appreciate that help and kindness shown to a stranger.

I am really happy to have amazing people as friends – of different ages, nationalities, and backgrounds. Some work in tech, and some in art, fashion, ad/marketing agencies, teaching, music, or entrepreneurship. They are a super diverse group, all super interesting, very kind, smart, and inviting. A lot of it is just being lucky and finding “your” people, but I think a lot also has to do with how NYC culture facilitates spontaneity. I would get texts, “Hey, we’re having brunch/drinks/whatever in 30 minutes in the neighborhood; want to join?”. Since +/- everyone lives around (within a few subway stops or a 10-20min cycle), cultivating friendships is very easy. And then often those “going out for one drink” become further social events with more people. This is the opposite of the Bay Area social events, which you plan a month ahead, and then everyone flakes out at the last minute anyway.

So for any of my friends and acquaintances who made living here such a great experience – thank you for just being and allowing me into your life. 🙂 (Side note, something I didn’t realize until recently: everyone here uses Instagram, unlike Facebook, used by Poles, or Twitter among my work peers. A wise friend advised me multiple times to use it – and start a Venmo account – and I didn’t listen to the sage advice until recently. I definitely should have, and it’s not as bad as I thought. 🙂 )

On top of that, there are many cultural and art events – ones I’d go to, mainly ranging from art/digital art to music parties – where I get to chat with and meet some more people…

Culture

Which brings me to NYC culture. It’s unbelievably rich and overwhelming. I’m not sure any aspects of culture wouldn’t be covered very well. 🙂 But since I don’t care for stuff like theater and other famous and fabulous (to some) NYC experiences, I’ll focus on my interests and perspective.

I love the art – look no further than dozens of world-class galleries, museums, and various pop-up events. I love all kinds of science and history museums – there’s more than plenty.

But the main thing that drives me outside of work is music scenes; in the past, punk rock and hardcore, now mainly techno, hard dance genres, synth-based, and UK bass – and NYC is the second-best hub in the world for the undergroud electronic music (after Berlin). The number of events is overwhelming, and the hype is real. I am not interested in large, big-room clubs and venues (there are obviously some world-class ones in the city, the kind that shows in the top 10 DJ mag “best big room club” lists year after year); I care primarily for local scenes and communities, and those are unbelievable. Am I in the mood for underground techno, broken beats bass music, some Gen Z hyperpop, or Latin bass? Doesn’t matter; every weekend, there are some absolutely fantastic events in clubs that specialize in those and have lively, dedicated communities and wonderful staff. When you start seeing the same faces week after week at those events, you feel good and like at home. 🙂 Sometimes it’s overwhelming and induces some FOMO (there are just too many good events, and when many best parties have headliners start playing at 4am – it is physically impossible to get enough energy to see and experience everything you want to experience), but I prefer such a problem to living in an absolute cultural desert of the Silicon Valley.

When discussing “culture,” it’s hard not to bring all the fabulous international cultures brought here by immigrants of every possible descent or nationality. I live close to “Little Puerto Rico” and mainly Latinx neighborhood, but there are many European enclaves as well, including Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. Huge impact of Ashkenazi Jewish culture. All kinds of African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, South, or East Asian neighborhoods, and more. With many of their languages still spoken and written, religions, celebrations, holidays, and delicious food. And all the other axes of diversity are as present, with a strong LGBTQ+ community and the best queer parties I have ever been to.

Lifestyle and walkability

I repeatedly mentioned in my post two years ago how I hate car-centric American suburbia, a cultural desert, and a prison for the human soul. Ok, I exaggerate a bit. 🙂 

New York City is (or rather – can be! There are plenty of residential neighborhoods as well; I would not call the far Queens a “typical Americana suburbia,” but if one likes to have a house with a garden and two cars – it’s more than possible) the opposite of that.

The lifestyle puts way more emphasis on spontaneity instead of planning ahead. I don’t even plan shopping too much – as within a 5-minute walk from home, I have 3 bodegas/delis and two (expensive but great) markets. 12 minutes walk away, I have a gigantic supermarket with international cuisine and produce. Within a mile or so, I have bike stores, multiple gyms, bars, restaurants, and lunch takeouts… So it’s much easier just to grab stuff or do something whenever I need it (and avoid over-consumption). The density of “points of interest” is just crazy.

I moved with the car but sold it after a few months (more on that later). The city is highly walkable, pedestrian, and mostly bike-friendly. The subway is just fantastic – I live 5 miles from most tech corporate offices, but my commute was something around 25 minutes door-to-door. When there is no easy subway connection (like across Brooklyn), I use city bikes, my own bike, or take surprisingly reliable busses (compared to LA or SF).

I love taking ~one-hour walks or cycles whenever I need to think about some work problem to refresh my mind or listen to an audiobook or a podcast. This is possible and super safe all year round, and no matter which direction I randomly walk, there is something interesting going on.

I would say that NYC – thanks to its size and density – is more exciting and walkable than many European cities. On some not-too-hot days, I randomly went out and ended up in Central Park or Battery Park; it is fun and interesting throughout the whole way and without encountering any pedestrian-unfriendly areas.

Exciting things to do 24/7

I mentioned how great the culture and events are. But this city is so much more than that. People live here and form genuine communities (instead of staying temporarily just as a work-focused passerby). Just going out any time of the year, there is always “something” happening around, from streets closed for restaurants and people having a BBQ on the street to some weird bike raves on the Williamsburg bridge.

Living in this city, you also get to experience fun out-of-city activities. Some examples: a music festival in the forest organized by people associated with one of the local queer-friendly clubs, a weekend trip with friends to camping with a disco in a barn in upstate New York, great beaches with warm ocean water (yes! much warmer than in NorCal, you can just swim without any wetsuit), see some freak mansions on the Long Island, jump for a day to DC or Philly, or rent a cottage in Poconos or Catskills.

My concerns – how did they turn out?

When I was leaving, I had some of my self-doubts and concerns, and others that came as “warnings” from colleagues or friends. None of the “serious” ones turned out to be true.

Let’s dissect them one by one.

Career

New York does not have many tech jobs that appeal to me, mainly in banking, HFT, general fintech, and some news agencies. There is almost zero work for people specializing in graphics – my friends who work in the same area either do so in big tech (which I also used to do) or mostly have done some contracting for ads/events agencies, especially with VR, panels, and installations.

The latter can be great for people who are passionate about it, and many are. However, I was never interested in creating “experiences” like those, but mostly in designing general and reusable algorithms and systems; over time, I went from a game programmer / technical director to a research scientist in computational photography and now back in graphics.

Understandably, I thought I could be “killing” my career. Many people I respect told me so, even if not explicitly, they politely asked, “so, is there anything for you to do in this New York?”.

What made it worse is that I thrive working together with others, especially when together physically – so the perspective of working remotely “forever” was not thrilling.

I acknowledged this and took the risk – what made it easier was still being in “pandemic mode” and everyone working from home anyway. When we were allowed to return to the office, I immediately went there and was very happy to see that the NYC Google office had a small but super cool and talented group of people specializing in graphics and computer vision. We didn’t work on the same team, but chatting about our work-related passions at lunches and sitting together was still super awesome.

Some time afterward, I decided to leave Google (mostly related to pandemic burnout, our team lost momentum and direction – I think we squeezed out almost everything we could from mobile phone photography image quality. Plus, finally, my desire to get back to graphics).

This was the real test – were my earlier concerns justified?

I originally planned to take a more prolonged sabbatical, but this was in early 2022 when the tech market was still booming, and I got bombarded with many fantastic job offers. To my surprise, out of probably ~20 people offering me jobs, I think only one person told me I’d have to relocate (and it was when I had a choice of an alternate team at the same company without such a requirement). Everyone else assumed “remote by default.” The offers were fantastic, and most of the teams I interviewed were full of people I admired professionally. Interestingly, all the best teams were scattered around the globe anyway.

My current team is split across ~9 different cities in many countries, and while there are some smaller hubs with a few researchers in the same city, there is full expectation of all meetings being remote anyway.

I admit I have been extremely lucky with the timing. I initially regretted not taking a long sabbatical, but seeing what happened to the economy (fuck Putin) and the tech job market (fuck Musk and his buddy VCs), I realized how lucky I got. Many employers require working from the office today, and my recruiting would probably be more challenging.

I also didn’t change my mind on preferring working in-office – I would love to sit with my colleagues. But I accept it as a trade-off.

And there might be another trade-off that is seldom expressed out loud. It is much easier to be a remote Individual Contributor, and it might indeed limit some career growth if someone wants to go into management. I was recruiting only for Principal-level positions, but still for an IC, which is what I want to do. I did some managing in the past; I used to be a technical director and don’t plan to get back to either anytime soon – I enjoy hands-on work too much, and I felt I was struggling with staying happy and dedicating adequate amounts of time to my reports, aligning teams, or the technical direction, instead of tinkering. But if someone has ambitions to be a director or a VP, on-site presence might be necessary, or at least make everything significantly easier. So I might have cut off such a progression path for myself – which I don’t mind, and it’s a tradeoff I very happily made. But people have different motivations – so it’s something to consider. Getting noticed and promoted to management of important teams is way easier if you work at the company headquarters.

Finally, my perspective is of someone who already had a successful career, gained relative recognition in their domain, and has no immigration-related work concerns. This might feel frustratingly tone-deaf to more junior people struggling to get their first job. If it does, I apologize. But I cannot speak about those experiences, only mine, and only the recent ones. I remember how much I struggled with getting my first US visa-sponsoring job (and the whole visa process) and how cruel it felt. The first time I tried, in 2012, I was ignored by every employer. I finally succeeded in 2014 after a lot of administrative trouble. Clearly, I do not direct the advice in this post to people in such a situation.

Silicon Valley legacy and inspiration

I kept this point explicitly separate from the career, as being in some inspiring environment has a non-tangible, non-measurable je ne sais quoi. Do I miss cycling daily past the founding building of companies that were legends to me, and as a kid growing up in Eastern Europe, I never imagined I could even get to see them? Yes, a bit. Same for working in the building that used to be the headquarters of Silicon Graphics (yes, Googleplex was bought from SGI!). It was surreal and inspiring, making me think of how the American Dream is possible (if you are extremely lucky or highly privileged, but so far, I was both) and how anything is possible.

But from the perspective of time and distance, I also see the superficiality and survivorship bias/luck factor of it even more. Many of those buildings were just shacks, and people got lucky to be close to Stanford University at some point and get the right opportunities just because it was the zeitgeist.

…and it’s not like New York and the surrounding East Coast don’t have an extraordinarily inspiring and crazy history. And I’m not talking about looking at the Statue of Liberty that, to many immigrants, still symbolizes the premise of the American dream or all the cultural icons here, from music to art. Even technology- and science-wise, it’s hard not to think of Princeton University, Bell Labs, Tomas Edison, or Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s not the most recent history, but, in a way, it makes it even more mythical and unbelievable that I can still see some physical artifacts from those legends.

Suburban pleasures

Okay, here I admit, I miss some of those. 🙂 

I miss having two huge terraces surrounded by gorgeous trees. I miss having a grill and a pizza oven on them and eating BBQ for dinner twice a week. I miss community swimming pools that can be in front of your door and open most of the year (summer public pools in NYC are great, but only some are good for swimming, all get crowded and open for just two months). I sometimes even miss the convenience of grabbing a car to go to a Home Depot or whatever. Luckily, the BBQ situation is easily fixable (many places to buy or rent have communal or private backyards or rooftops), so will my future condo, and I look forward to it.

Note: I rent a 1500 sq ft industrial loft in a former factory, so home size is not a concern for me. But many living in Manhattan struggle with less space than typical suburb houses. So another factor to consider.

“Easy-going Californians” vs. “Rough New Yorkers” 

There’s this myth that Californians are friendly and easy-going, unlike harsh, rude people on the East Coast.

This is complete bullshit.

Yes – almost every store clerk grins at you in California and shouts enthusiastically, while some bodega employees might look bored and disengaged in NYC. People on the subway mostly just mind their own business. However, forced servitude and enthusiasm in a customer-business relationship or pretending you are happy about others when you don’t care are not how I define friendliness.

New York City is weird, crazy, and fabulous, and many people demonstrate unexpected friendliness, kindness, and gratitude to complete strangers. People tend to be more caring and attentive; if you need help, they don’t look away. It’s a gigantic, dense city – and people had to learn to coexist and support each other despite (or maybe mainly because of?) many being immigrants with different cultural backgrounds. There is much less sick individualism and tech-bro/Karen NIMBYism than in California. And this “grumpy” bodega clerk will start chatting with you and showing genuine interest once they see you are a local.

Winters

Many people warned me against “harsh East Coast winters.” I don’t really know where this myth comes from when it comes to NYC. Disclaimer – I have survived 2 winters in Montreal (with perceivable temperatures reaching -40C/-40F!) and grew up in Poland (roughly similar weather to Germany or the US Midwest; most winter days are slightly below freezing and some much colder), so my expectations of cold might have been different than from Californian or Israeli friends.

Still, while I have some problems with adjusting to the summers, the last winters were numbingly… mild. I recommend comparing NYC to some of the other cities on the excellent Weather Spark website. Last year, there was literally a single day of snow. Most of December, I would wear shorts and a hoodie while walking to the gym at 10pm. This might be a factor of temporary weather anomalies or long-term climate change, but compared to many other places, winters are short and very mild. I wouldn’t mind getting more snow, to be honest. 🙂 

City safety

Another warning against NYC – almost exclusively from people who never lived there! – was of street safety. Right-wing tabloids make sure to cover every event of brutal crime with all the possible details, which understandably scares people through constant exposure to reports of violence.

I live between some “projects,” (which are totally fine and normal! Unless you are racist. Those housing projects with young people hanging outside are what most Polish cities look like with huge “bloki,” and I spent the first years of my life living in those, my grandmothers still live in ones).

I often cycle and walk at night, including coming back from clubs through warehouse districts or going shopping at a bodega at 2am, and seriously, it’s just 100% normal. I have never had an unsafe or sketchy situation for over two years. Feels much safer than Los Angeles or San Francisco. In LA, I saw a person getting stabbed on the street at the bus stop and in broad daylight. I heard gunshots many times and once saw someone with a gun running away from the cops. None of it ever happened to me in Brooklyn.

Some disclaimer: I am 180cm / over 5’10, athletic, lightly buffed, and generally confident-looking with an always-pissed-off European face (but I’m not, I swear!). I have a very apparent Eastern European accent, which many people find intimidating for cultural reasons (someone explained that they think of Eastern Europeans as “crazy” and possibly gang members – see the John Wick movie series). I grew up in areas with a lot of crime and had to defend myself from muggings multiple times as a young teenager, and in my later teens, we had to defend local punk-rock concerts from nazi skinheads, so I know how to behave on the street and not be intimidated. I also act with a certain dose of foolishness and am not risk-averse at all.

Because of that, I understand that the perspective of most women, especially from minorities, can be very different than mine. But my wife, who is short and small/skinny, also never felt physically unsafe, including at night. I also understand that neighborhoods might be different, and I have not been everywhere – but if someone tells you that some neighborhoods are unsafe based on ethnic minorities living there, they are just racist. (Most of my neighborhood is a mix of working-class Latinx people, projects with primarily black people, and some young white people gentrifying the area like I do. And it’s super normal and safe, safer than most of Manhattan, not just in my biased view but also according to NYPD crime stats).

One crime that I think is pretty common and annoying is bike theft. I would never leave my cheap bike unlocked, even for a minute. I actually don’t feel great about leaving it locked either – have seen too many locked bicycles with their wheel missing…

In either case, I obviously recommend basic street awareness to everyone – at night, always be aware of everyone within a block radius, don’t look for trouble, don’t respond to callouts from drunk people, but also never look like you are scared; and look like you know what you are doing. But no need to go beyond that or be afraid; the city is much safer than it seems (apps like Citizen show scary events around, but they are… pretty rare, actually, especially considering the city density?).

Disadvantages of NYC

As I said, my city honeymoon is over, so I can also see some negatives. And I’m a Slav, so I need to complain a bit. 🙂 

Lackluster vegetation and parks

This is by far the biggest disadvantage of the area of Brooklyn I live in, but the whole city has very lackluster vegetation and almost no parks. And parks that are there often have some sports courts instead of trees. Central Park is world-famous, but I have mixed feelings about it. Yes, it has plenty of trees, is huge, and parts of it are wild, but it’s also just swarmed with people, especially tourists…

My favorite park is probably Prospect Park (it can also get crowded, but at least with locals chilling; its center has a similar vibe to SF Dolores Park, but much larger and with some actual trees). Bronx Zoo is excellent, and so are some Botanical Gardens. But many “parks” are just block-sized pieces of grass. No way to walk or get lost in there. I miss my hometown, Warsaw, with huge and “real” parks everywhere. Makes me think of my childhood and walks with my grandfather – every weekend to a different park the whole year round. Or of my first teenage dates. And of student years and (illegally) drinking in those parks.

Similarly, many streets lack vegetation. Some Brooklyn neighborhoods like Clinton Hill or Park Slope have beautiful brownstones surrounded by trees, but in many others, there is no vegetation or shade, making summer heat and sun even more unbearable.

SF South Bay was definitely more green despite California being a desert.

Summer heat and humidity

The lack of trees makes summers even more unbearable… and they are brutal. I think only one person warned me about them (though, in hindsight, I should have learned it from Spike Lee’s multiple classics, as the summer heat making people go “crazy” is one of the central themes there). They are insanely hot, insanely humid, and muggy, and on top of that – very sunny. Sweltering, oven-like 35C/95F during the day is one thing. But it “dropping” to 27C/80F at night is insane. It’s hard to go out at all (you get sticky after 5 minutes), and inside, you need to have AC blasting the whole day. The temperature never drops below the dew point, so humidity never subsides.

In peak summer, I go cycling around midnight, which would still be too hot; a full shower is necessary even after a short cycle. Summers are definitely hotter than in the whole of California, including SoCal, and way hotter and muggier than most of Europe.

I love summer storms and rain, and it does rain relatively often – but the humidity doesn’t go down even after a downpour!

Cars – ownership, traffic

When I moved, I moved my car with me, but “had to” sell it just half a year later. Owning one is a nightmare. You can pay $300-500 monthly for a garage spot or do the street parking. In my neighborhood, it was easy, but you need to repark 2x a week for street cleaning (or rather – the cleaning doesn’t happen, the streets are full of trash, but you need to repark anyway or get a ticket). If you travel, you must either put your car in an expensive garage anyway, have someone repark it for you, or pay a bunch of tickets and possibly get towed away.

And then, the car is not that useful in the city, and getting outside of the city for a weekend means being stuck for 1-2 hours in the traffic (and similar for getting back). So after using it only for three separate weekend trips but constantly reparking and having trouble going for vacations, I have sold my car, and now, I use ZipCar (expensive, but convenient).

The traffic is nightmarish, and people drive like assholes and park and stop like assholes. I cannot count how often I got almost run over by someone crossing the traffic lights on red. Or how often I had to pass cars parked in the middle of the street.

This is my concern when cycling as well. There are plenty of bike paths, but during the day, someone stops or parks on the bike line almost every block. Protected lanes are not any better, as people stop by the entrance to the lane at the intersection, making it even worse (it’s hard to anticipate, you need to join the car lane to pass that stopped car, and after you pass it, you cannot join the bike lane again until the next intersection). I already had some almost-hits when cycling, and it’s probably just a matter of time until I get into an accident (so I’m trying to be careful, wear a helmet, multiple lights, and cycle mostly at night – when it’s significantly safer).

Small annoyances

After you lived long enough in any place, you will discover many small annoying things.

I won’t list all of them, but some funny examples. What do you do with the garbage? Do you put it in a container? In most places, no, just throw the bag on the street for it to be collected many hours later. And in the summer heat, all the garbage juice is fermenting, rats are chewing through the bags, and the cockroaches dining… Most of the city (especially Manhattan with many restaurants) smells “delightful”… SF smelled of feces and piss; here it’s the sweet, rotting garbage. Streets can also be very dirty and full of trash, especially compared to Eastern Europe (where even the poorest villages can be sparkling clean, and cities smell mostly with trees and plants).

Do you want to refill a gas bottle? No way to do it in the city because there are no gas refilling stations – something about the risk of explosions. You need to drive outside of the city limits! (You can exchange the bottle at Home Depots and such, but only regular-sized, large ones.)

And a final funny one is this classic NYC thing: “We have too many overregulated laws, but everyone just ignores them anyway.” For example, fire codes and building safety laws: “OK, we will implement this weird and annoying thing just for the inspection sign-off, but what you do afterward… it’s up to you, nobody cares”.

Conclusions

This post covers just my experiences. I love New York City, and I’m extremely happy I moved here; I’m very happy I left California and would never go back to SFBA (maybe, one day, I wouldn’t mind living in LA again for some short time).

It was not any kind of obstacle for me career-wise, and none of the serious concerns I had really mattered. It does not mean this would work for you. You might love California with its tech culture and suburbs. Or maybe you prefer to move to Montana, Australia, or some European city; we are all different, which is wonderful.

But I want to emphasize something that changed in my thinking.

All the moves I did before were for work and career. I was obviously willing to make them (especially to LA, which was my dream but became a disappointment as it only partially fulfilled my expectations), except for the one to SFBA.

But this was the first time I moved primarily not for career growth and job opportunities but against and despite them. And it was a fantastic choice.

So my advice is – it’s OK to move for work; you might not have much choice at the beginning of your career. But it’s also okay to move ignoring or “sabotaging” those job opportunities – if you work in an industry allowing for work-from-home.

It’s not worth “suffering” in your 168 hours a week just because it makes fulfilling some ambitions (are they even real, or just projected?) in those 40 working hours easier.

Pursuing your other non-work dreams, passions, interests, and quality of life will be much more impactful to your happiness than having slightly easier access to opportunities to get promoted.

Life is so full of randomness and unexpected events, and luck plays such a high role that your multi-year plans of optimizing the career path are most likely futile and possibly counter-productive and self-sabotaging. I think I know maybe a handful of “successful” people who planned for their success with ambition (and often ruthlessness). Most other truly “successful” people were “just” talented, very lucky, working hard, and took some random uncertain opportunities that worked well for them. Being randomly at the right place at the right time and foolish enough to say “yes” to a crazy and risky opportunity is seriously underrated in all the biographies. 🙂

And for tech workers (acknowledging our privilege, which might not last forever): as long as you genuinely enjoy what you are doing and are ok at it, you will be fine, no matter where you decide to live. Embrace the growth mindset, and be flexible and on the lookout for opportunities. Obviously, only if you want. “Success” is an unachievable social construct and an illusion anyway; high-quality, consistent daily work you enjoy is all that matters, and it leads to true excellence. This is what your peers will respect you for.

And finally, considering social life, friendships, and opportunities for meeting like-minded people should have been my top priority long ago. I am happy with the travels and life adventures I got to experience; I feel like I already lived many lives worth of stories. But I didn’t realize how important the close community was for me until I saw how I felt when missing it and contrasted it with experiencing it. I’m happy where I am at right now. 🙂